[For my ever so patient readers, I have a massive project in the works on a par with the Warlord’s Reading list… You will not be disappointed when its out.
It is not that Eomer is lacking in moral courage it is that you simply do not understand why he does what he does. He wants to slay wormtongue and possibly even his uncle, but the honor of his people would mean that no one would follow him or trust him if he did something so treacherous. Theoden’s son who had just died days before was in line for the throne not Eomer so up until that point it would have been his decision, not Eomer’s. The honor of their culture dictates that he let the king to live with his dishonor rather than to begin his rule with the ultimate dishonor and have that permanently stain his legacy. The king must be allowed redemption. You continuously fail to understand Tolkien at every turn and it’s honestly getting weird and pathetic at this point, as if your own moral bankruptcy is preventing you from understanding a greater moral framework.
I just hafta air this here, because probably most people won’t read my comment below about LOTR vis à vis the Arthurian cycle. LOTR is like, what if the Holy Grail is actually an unprepossessing old tin cup knocking around in Camelot’s scullery, and nobody knows about it except Sir Kay the seneschal, the knight in charge of Camelot ‘s larder? (Charles Williams’ novel “ War in Heaven” uses such a conceit) Kay is like Bilbo, he’s just too busy fretting about food deliveries to the castle , having enough candles and torches, and supervising the cooking to be taken over by the Grail’s power. (The magic of the quotidian, like what protects Harry Potter in the Dursley household). But : one night the vivacious vessel escapes him and appears above the Round Table, tantalizingly veiled, and..it breaks up the Fellowship. The knights disperse and go questing around through hollow lands and hilly lands looking for it, (which is weird cuz Camelot is the only place it’s ever been spotted). Trusty, crusty old Sir Kay ( who never gets to do anything heroic in the legends, but he must be a veteran, right?) who is now not so busy because there are a lot fewer knights eating and carousing at the Round Table, dons a pilgrim’s cloak, tucks the troublesome tumbler into a deep pocket, and sets off to find some place to …maybe return it to? Maybe Jerusalem? He hopes agains hope that his quest will result in the restoration of the Fellowship of the Round Table. Hijinks ensue as Kay tries to keep the ebullient Mug o’ Mystery under wraps, occasionally encountering some of his former fellow knights, alone and palely loitering, pining away seeking it……
Welp, time to get outta bed and do my morning chores.
It’s been awhile since I read LOTR, but just a meditation: Hamlet has 2 levels, 2 storylines: the domestic and the…I reckon military, or historical. Since it’s. 5 hrs long most productions really only hit the domestic drama.
In this comment you seem to be doing the opposite: you’re ignoring the domestic drama and expressing how the military/historical should have been written. Very interesting take. I’ve always focused on the Turn of the Screw aspect of the Theoden story: a beloved respected relative, maliciously corrupted, turned against those who in reality have his best interests at heart…a bit o’ King Lear. My fave scene in the movie was Theoden’s restoration to mature vigor. Just a personal musing…carry on.
I agree I think Theoden is done right. But Eomir is all wrong, wormtongue accuses him and he runs like a bitch. It feels like the obvious plot is Eomir kills worm tongue fails to rescue Eowen is wounded and carried away by his men. Then the fellowship breaks the spell before Gandalf retrieves Eomir to relieve helms deep. It cleans everything up and deals with worm tongue who does exactly nothing for the rest of the story. All while making Eomir not a complete and total bitch.
Y’know, when I think about it (and thanks for bringing it to mind) I just hafta say: was there ever a more perfect character name than “Wormtongue”? Y’gotta go to Dickens: Mr. M’Choakumchild, the Cheeryble Brothers, Squeers…..no I still think Tolkien gets the prize!
There isn't a difference between moral treason and personal weakness when you're the king.
If he's just incompetent but a good man, he could Abdicate in favor of his Nephew... The second he's incompetent and insists he is competent and driving the family and kingdom off a cliff he has to die to stop him.
If your grandfather got drunk and high and tried to drive off with your kids in the back of the car and was probably going to crash and kill them... You have to shoot him, even if he's normally a great guy and otherwise has always been a good person.
When you're the person in charge you're responsible for outcomes, not your intentions. An incompetent king is worse than an evil king.
Kings are people and with people incompetence is the rule, not the exception. If all mildly incompetent kings were murdered, dynasties would have been extremely short-lived.
Regardless, Theoden was not even a weak character, he was ill. Big difference, again. The ideal solution was obviously to cure him and that is precisely what happened in the novel.
If a cure is not available, the second best thing is what actual medievals and early moderns did when the king was clearly insane: He got declared unfit and a regency took over for the duration of his reign. Perfectly viable, but rather too boring for an epic fantasy novel. In real life, boring is good, though.
If you allow for trying to topple the ruler because you think you are more competent, you have perma-war.
I didn´t say Theoden was possessed strictly speaking. But Saruman had either magically clouded his mind or he was suffering from Alzheimer, which Gandalf miraculously cured.
No, European honor cultures, i.e. Norse and Germanic societies, practiced duels/challenges for leadership (holmgang) while simultaneously having succession rites. The Greeks and Romans didn’t, because their culture focused on lineal/familial empowerment, civic excellence, and patronage networks, not individualistic personal reputation.
But neither practiced strict hereditary succession, which was only codified in the Early Modern era and was short-lived (liberal revolutions).
Medieval monarchy certainly wasn’t strict about it; even with succession rites in place, disputes over competence were extremely common.
Stone age societies, norse or other, are not a measure of anything. They succeeded at nothing, I do not see what reason we should have to imitate them.
The Roman Empire is the case in point why not having a strictly codified system of government is bad. Few Emperors abdicated or died in bed, many were executed or murdered and the whole thing came tumbling down after a few centuries, because it lacked stability.
Medieval succession disputes existed, but they were more about the fine-printed in the rules, e.g. the question if a daughter could inherit, not about competence.
Wha’’?? He was not a “weak retard” as I recall. He was..bewitched, bedeviled. It could happen to anybody. Additionally I think Tolkien was calling on the mythology of the Grail, the king with the “wound in the thigh”. I never thought of it this way before but LOTR could be seen as unspooling the Grail cycles (in favor of Norse mythology which JRR and the Inklings preferred). In LOTR, the ultimate power object is in possession of a kinda anti-hero character, Bilbo, who (mos’ly) is immune from its influence because of his strong roots in the blessèd quotidian: the Shire. The problem, the quest, the geas in LOTR is not FINDING the numinous power object, but getting RID of it. Whaddya think?
I have been writing for years that I think Christianity primes us for the WEF’s goals : after all, we SHOULD live like itinerant mendicant preachers: cold little cells, disgusting food, no wealth of our own, no status. But we don’t practice what we preach, all the WEF /Davos bozos have to do is press those guilt buttons.
Now bear with me, @Kulak: I this post, I think you’re saying Christianity primes us for nonviolence. Let’s review: In the OT.our religious forbears, the Jews, were quite militant after the Exodus. Think Gideon, Samson, Joshua. Military might and take-no-prisoners was a GOOD thing, God’s will.
In the NT, suddenly nothing about earthly life, comfort, power, matters any more. In fact those are obstacles to salvation in the life to come. Lotsa individual Christians accepted this (many not by choice; they just were born, , y’know, poor ‘n’ hungry) but— the CHURCH? It was the Church Militant, Armies,of God, from Constantine through the Wars of Religion. (Unlike everybody else in the world I do NOT include the Crusades, which were truly individual pilgrimages of faith, but never mind that right now.)
So @Kulak, (since somebody else here accused you of “campaigning against Christianity) lemme ask you: do you like the Church Militant any better than the Gospel message?
Christianity is and always was globalism. Unlike Jews who never proselytize, and Muz who demand submission at sword point, a Christian’s mission is to preach, use our words, to convert the whole world.
Or, Idk, maybe the structure of the WEF ideology and action plan mimics this: there will be a wealthy elite at the top (as there was among the “Princes” of the Church) and the majority of the faithful will be happy to be immiserated because they see their suffering and deprivation as proof that they are “laying up treasures on Heaven”.
The point of the character Wormtongue (Grima, son of Gálmód) is to show that a kingdom - a realm and a people - can be conwuered by other means than swords and soldiers; corruption.
For those who have read The silmarillion, there's a clear parallel to how Sauron leads the Numenoreans astray - when they come to his lands, he takes one look at the armies and fleets of Numernor and surrenders on the spot.
And then causes them to rise against the gods only to be destroyed for their trouble.
Wormtongue is that same character and function, but in LotR, and the point of it being Gandalf waking the king from his torpor and wishy-washiness is that the LotR is about trusting in both yourself and the divine right(eousness).
It helps understanding the book if one is somewhat schooled in the languages used as the basis for many of the names: Gandalf is the name of one of the dwarfs in Voluspa, namely in the Devergatal, and gand- or gandr- means magic entity/spirit, magic wand, while -alf means elf. It's not pronounced Gan-dalf as I've heard some English-speakers say it, but Gand-alf.
(Nitpickery, but one has to have some vice when one no longer drinks o'ermuch or smokes.)
Which brings me back to Grima, son of Gálmód.
Grima, spelled grimma in modern Swedish, originally means mask or visor, i.e. something that convers your face. Fitting, given the role of the character. Gálmód is a bit trickier:
At a guess I'd say Tolkien welded Gál- from two Nordic words. depending on context, "gal" can mean cock-crow, but normally it means that something's gone wrong or that some is mad, as in insane or deranged (galen). -mód means courage, bravery.
Thus, Grima, son of Gálmód would mean a man who covers up his madness and wrongness behind a mask.
Don't forget when reading Tolkien that he knew full well what a kenning is, and how to try and unfurl or twine such from the naming of things. Every single name of every single character or place or thing is a story in its own righ, which is hardly surprising given the source material:
Havamal, Voluspa, other Old Nordic/Norse surviving texts, Kalevala and lots more from Celtic, Nordic and Finnish history and mythology and religion (and possibly some Baltic and Slavic; some characters such as the tragic hero Túrin Turambar could be argued to have been inspired by the Bogatyr [Turko-Mongolic in origin] f.e.).
I’m almost convinced that just reading Tolkien, plus daily life and observation, will yield a better understanding of our world than constantly watching legacy media.
I tend to think that LOTR is a good myth and it has valuable things to teach. I fully think that it will be the only work of 20th century literature to survive the fall of modern civilization. It is however the most absolutely wrong story to be imbibing today. The whole of Tolkien revolves around struggling to hold on to the right until the king comes back. It’s the story of the Danes desperately fighting Grendel before Beowulf sails down. It’s the story of the besieged city holding out for relief. That’s a good story and one worth repeating, but it’s the wrong story for today.
Unsurprisingly that’s the exact reason conservatives love LOTR because if you imbibe it today you will make every wrong decision.
Also you are entirely correct that the Rohan plot was a complete cop out by Tolkien. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if LORT gets charged in the future to have Eomer being exiled because he kills wormtongue and tries to rescue Eowen. He then flees and collects his men to pull a wandering warlord. Then the fellowship breaks the spell on Theoden and reunites the kingdom. I suspect that Eowen would no longer be his sister in this story and the culmination of this plot is a wedding after helm’s deep or the pelanor fields. Even as a kid I thought that it was a profoundly weak resolution to a great setup.
It is not that Eomer is lacking in moral courage it is that you simply do not understand why he does what he does. He wants to slay wormtongue and possibly even his uncle, but the honor of his people would mean that no one would follow him or trust him if he did something so treacherous. Theoden’s son who had just died days before was in line for the throne not Eomer so up until that point it would have been his decision, not Eomer’s. The honor of their culture dictates that he let the king to live with his dishonor rather than to begin his rule with the ultimate dishonor and have that permanently stain his legacy. The king must be allowed redemption. You continuously fail to understand Tolkien at every turn and it’s honestly getting weird and pathetic at this point, as if your own moral bankruptcy is preventing you from understanding a greater moral framework.
It is part of Kulak's campaign against Christianity that leads him to misrepresent Tolkien.
I just hafta air this here, because probably most people won’t read my comment below about LOTR vis à vis the Arthurian cycle. LOTR is like, what if the Holy Grail is actually an unprepossessing old tin cup knocking around in Camelot’s scullery, and nobody knows about it except Sir Kay the seneschal, the knight in charge of Camelot ‘s larder? (Charles Williams’ novel “ War in Heaven” uses such a conceit) Kay is like Bilbo, he’s just too busy fretting about food deliveries to the castle , having enough candles and torches, and supervising the cooking to be taken over by the Grail’s power. (The magic of the quotidian, like what protects Harry Potter in the Dursley household). But : one night the vivacious vessel escapes him and appears above the Round Table, tantalizingly veiled, and..it breaks up the Fellowship. The knights disperse and go questing around through hollow lands and hilly lands looking for it, (which is weird cuz Camelot is the only place it’s ever been spotted). Trusty, crusty old Sir Kay ( who never gets to do anything heroic in the legends, but he must be a veteran, right?) who is now not so busy because there are a lot fewer knights eating and carousing at the Round Table, dons a pilgrim’s cloak, tucks the troublesome tumbler into a deep pocket, and sets off to find some place to …maybe return it to? Maybe Jerusalem? He hopes agains hope that his quest will result in the restoration of the Fellowship of the Round Table. Hijinks ensue as Kay tries to keep the ebullient Mug o’ Mystery under wraps, occasionally encountering some of his former fellow knights, alone and palely loitering, pining away seeking it……
Welp, time to get outta bed and do my morning chores.
It’s been awhile since I read LOTR, but just a meditation: Hamlet has 2 levels, 2 storylines: the domestic and the…I reckon military, or historical. Since it’s. 5 hrs long most productions really only hit the domestic drama.
In this comment you seem to be doing the opposite: you’re ignoring the domestic drama and expressing how the military/historical should have been written. Very interesting take. I’ve always focused on the Turn of the Screw aspect of the Theoden story: a beloved respected relative, maliciously corrupted, turned against those who in reality have his best interests at heart…a bit o’ King Lear. My fave scene in the movie was Theoden’s restoration to mature vigor. Just a personal musing…carry on.
I rather like that Theoden is given the chance to shrug off the subversion and redeem himself in battle...provides a nice contrast against Denethor.
I agree I think Theoden is done right. But Eomir is all wrong, wormtongue accuses him and he runs like a bitch. It feels like the obvious plot is Eomir kills worm tongue fails to rescue Eowen is wounded and carried away by his men. Then the fellowship breaks the spell before Gandalf retrieves Eomir to relieve helms deep. It cleans everything up and deals with worm tongue who does exactly nothing for the rest of the story. All while making Eomir not a complete and total bitch.
Y’know, when I think about it (and thanks for bringing it to mind) I just hafta say: was there ever a more perfect character name than “Wormtongue”? Y’gotta go to Dickens: Mr. M’Choakumchild, the Cheeryble Brothers, Squeers…..no I still think Tolkien gets the prize!
The big difference is that Hamlet´s uncle is a coldblooded murderer while Theoden is essentially a good man who is under a kind of confusion spell.
Perhaps you really do not get the difference, but that is because you are a moral illiterate. It´s not Tolkien´s fault.
There isn't a difference between moral treason and personal weakness when you're the king.
If he's just incompetent but a good man, he could Abdicate in favor of his Nephew... The second he's incompetent and insists he is competent and driving the family and kingdom off a cliff he has to die to stop him.
If your grandfather got drunk and high and tried to drive off with your kids in the back of the car and was probably going to crash and kill them... You have to shoot him, even if he's normally a great guy and otherwise has always been a good person.
When you're the person in charge you're responsible for outcomes, not your intentions. An incompetent king is worse than an evil king.
Kings are people and with people incompetence is the rule, not the exception. If all mildly incompetent kings were murdered, dynasties would have been extremely short-lived.
Regardless, Theoden was not even a weak character, he was ill. Big difference, again. The ideal solution was obviously to cure him and that is precisely what happened in the novel.
If a cure is not available, the second best thing is what actual medievals and early moderns did when the king was clearly insane: He got declared unfit and a regency took over for the duration of his reign. Perfectly viable, but rather too boring for an epic fantasy novel. In real life, boring is good, though.
Dynasties should be short lived, the most competent man should be in charge.
Theoden was only possessed in the movies, in the books he was just a weak retard.
Everybody thinks he is most competent.
If you allow for trying to topple the ruler because you think you are more competent, you have perma-war.
I didn´t say Theoden was possessed strictly speaking. But Saruman had either magically clouded his mind or he was suffering from Alzheimer, which Gandalf miraculously cured.
No, European honor cultures, i.e. Norse and Germanic societies, practiced duels/challenges for leadership (holmgang) while simultaneously having succession rites. The Greeks and Romans didn’t, because their culture focused on lineal/familial empowerment, civic excellence, and patronage networks, not individualistic personal reputation.
But neither practiced strict hereditary succession, which was only codified in the Early Modern era and was short-lived (liberal revolutions).
Medieval monarchy certainly wasn’t strict about it; even with succession rites in place, disputes over competence were extremely common.
I don´t think you know much history.
Stone age societies, norse or other, are not a measure of anything. They succeeded at nothing, I do not see what reason we should have to imitate them.
The Roman Empire is the case in point why not having a strictly codified system of government is bad. Few Emperors abdicated or died in bed, many were executed or murdered and the whole thing came tumbling down after a few centuries, because it lacked stability.
Medieval succession disputes existed, but they were more about the fine-printed in the rules, e.g. the question if a daughter could inherit, not about competence.
Wha’’?? He was not a “weak retard” as I recall. He was..bewitched, bedeviled. It could happen to anybody. Additionally I think Tolkien was calling on the mythology of the Grail, the king with the “wound in the thigh”. I never thought of it this way before but LOTR could be seen as unspooling the Grail cycles (in favor of Norse mythology which JRR and the Inklings preferred). In LOTR, the ultimate power object is in possession of a kinda anti-hero character, Bilbo, who (mos’ly) is immune from its influence because of his strong roots in the blessèd quotidian: the Shire. The problem, the quest, the geas in LOTR is not FINDING the numinous power object, but getting RID of it. Whaddya think?
No, in the book Theoden wasn’t bewitched, he was only an old (weak) “king” being manipulated (retard). He was only possessed in the movie.
I have been writing for years that I think Christianity primes us for the WEF’s goals : after all, we SHOULD live like itinerant mendicant preachers: cold little cells, disgusting food, no wealth of our own, no status. But we don’t practice what we preach, all the WEF /Davos bozos have to do is press those guilt buttons.
Now bear with me, @Kulak: I this post, I think you’re saying Christianity primes us for nonviolence. Let’s review: In the OT.our religious forbears, the Jews, were quite militant after the Exodus. Think Gideon, Samson, Joshua. Military might and take-no-prisoners was a GOOD thing, God’s will.
In the NT, suddenly nothing about earthly life, comfort, power, matters any more. In fact those are obstacles to salvation in the life to come. Lotsa individual Christians accepted this (many not by choice; they just were born, , y’know, poor ‘n’ hungry) but— the CHURCH? It was the Church Militant, Armies,of God, from Constantine through the Wars of Religion. (Unlike everybody else in the world I do NOT include the Crusades, which were truly individual pilgrimages of faith, but never mind that right now.)
So @Kulak, (since somebody else here accused you of “campaigning against Christianity) lemme ask you: do you like the Church Militant any better than the Gospel message?
Christianity is and always was globalism. Unlike Jews who never proselytize, and Muz who demand submission at sword point, a Christian’s mission is to preach, use our words, to convert the whole world.
Or, Idk, maybe the structure of the WEF ideology and action plan mimics this: there will be a wealthy elite at the top (as there was among the “Princes” of the Church) and the majority of the faithful will be happy to be immiserated because they see their suffering and deprivation as proof that they are “laying up treasures on Heaven”.
The point of the character Wormtongue (Grima, son of Gálmód) is to show that a kingdom - a realm and a people - can be conwuered by other means than swords and soldiers; corruption.
For those who have read The silmarillion, there's a clear parallel to how Sauron leads the Numenoreans astray - when they come to his lands, he takes one look at the armies and fleets of Numernor and surrenders on the spot.
And then causes them to rise against the gods only to be destroyed for their trouble.
Wormtongue is that same character and function, but in LotR, and the point of it being Gandalf waking the king from his torpor and wishy-washiness is that the LotR is about trusting in both yourself and the divine right(eousness).
It helps understanding the book if one is somewhat schooled in the languages used as the basis for many of the names: Gandalf is the name of one of the dwarfs in Voluspa, namely in the Devergatal, and gand- or gandr- means magic entity/spirit, magic wand, while -alf means elf. It's not pronounced Gan-dalf as I've heard some English-speakers say it, but Gand-alf.
(Nitpickery, but one has to have some vice when one no longer drinks o'ermuch or smokes.)
Which brings me back to Grima, son of Gálmód.
Grima, spelled grimma in modern Swedish, originally means mask or visor, i.e. something that convers your face. Fitting, given the role of the character. Gálmód is a bit trickier:
At a guess I'd say Tolkien welded Gál- from two Nordic words. depending on context, "gal" can mean cock-crow, but normally it means that something's gone wrong or that some is mad, as in insane or deranged (galen). -mód means courage, bravery.
Thus, Grima, son of Gálmód would mean a man who covers up his madness and wrongness behind a mask.
Don't forget when reading Tolkien that he knew full well what a kenning is, and how to try and unfurl or twine such from the naming of things. Every single name of every single character or place or thing is a story in its own righ, which is hardly surprising given the source material:
Havamal, Voluspa, other Old Nordic/Norse surviving texts, Kalevala and lots more from Celtic, Nordic and Finnish history and mythology and religion (and possibly some Baltic and Slavic; some characters such as the tragic hero Túrin Turambar could be argued to have been inspired by the Bogatyr [Turko-Mongolic in origin] f.e.).
Weak writers create hard times
I’m almost convinced that just reading Tolkien, plus daily life and observation, will yield a better understanding of our world than constantly watching legacy media.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/the-parable-of-the-black-numenoreans
I tend to think that LOTR is a good myth and it has valuable things to teach. I fully think that it will be the only work of 20th century literature to survive the fall of modern civilization. It is however the most absolutely wrong story to be imbibing today. The whole of Tolkien revolves around struggling to hold on to the right until the king comes back. It’s the story of the Danes desperately fighting Grendel before Beowulf sails down. It’s the story of the besieged city holding out for relief. That’s a good story and one worth repeating, but it’s the wrong story for today.
Unsurprisingly that’s the exact reason conservatives love LOTR because if you imbibe it today you will make every wrong decision.
Also you are entirely correct that the Rohan plot was a complete cop out by Tolkien. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if LORT gets charged in the future to have Eomer being exiled because he kills wormtongue and tries to rescue Eowen. He then flees and collects his men to pull a wandering warlord. Then the fellowship breaks the spell on Theoden and reunites the kingdom. I suspect that Eowen would no longer be his sister in this story and the culmination of this plot is a wedding after helm’s deep or the pelanor fields. Even as a kid I thought that it was a profoundly weak resolution to a great setup.